


Lachrymose

by Minew



Category: SHINee
Genre: Angst, Family, Father/Daughter, Gen, Mentions of Violence, Minor Character Death, Other, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-10-01 05:40:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10181879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minew/pseuds/Minew
Summary: Jonghyun is a hard-working father and Eunsook wishes he would stop and just listen.





	

 

Jonghyun is looking at the small infant in his arms, the baby’s hands curling and uncurling around air. He’s smiling down at his daughter. When he looks to his wife in the bed, she avoids his gaze and looks at the wall. Jonghyun calls her name silently but it causes the girl in his arms to stir and he returns his attention to the miracle he holds. The wall clock is ticking as he observes his daughter and his wife ignores the both of them. 

They enter their home the next day. Jonghyun tries handing over their daughter but his wife ignores them and places herself   
in the bed and pulls the blanket around her. Jonghyun just looks at her before he cradles the baby girl into his chest as she whimpers. 

“Gwiboon,” he tries but the woman in the bed turns her back to him and says nothing. 

Jonghyun raises their daughter as his wife falls into post-natal depression. Not once has she touched the girl Jonghyun has named Eunsook and no matter how hard he tries, she refuses to have anything to do with the child. Eunsook craves affection and Jonghyun is left with little time to himself as he does everything he can to give his wife the time she needs and his daughter the affection she deserves. He loses the friends he once had and his job as a composer gives little money when he can’t compose. 

 

When he a year later finds Gwiboon in the shower, her body lifeless and vomit on the floor, he calls 119. It’s too late. Jonghyun cries in the hospital when they tell him that they cannot save her and then he goes numb. His mother is watching Eunsook while he plans the funeral. Jonghyun has lost everything he once had and as he looks at his daughter, he sees his wife and wants to run away. He doesn’t run away, however. Instead he takes the 1 year old toddler and carries her with him everywhere. Jonghyun loves Eunsook but he’s too numb and the sorrow of losing his wife is too deep and it doesn’t shine through. 

They rent an apartment in a shady neighbourhood for a lower rent and Jonghyun is forced to find a part-time job at the grocery store to be able to support them. Eunsook cries every night alongside her father and they share a pain that is indescribable to them both. She grows up to be a beautiful young girl and Jonghyun does his best to be there as the caring father he’s supposed to be but it’s so hard when the girl before him is the spitting image of the woman he lost 4 years ago. Eunsook doesn’t know her mother is dead, it’s still too early to tell her and the pain is still too raw and Jonghyun can’t tell her. He bites his lower lip in the night to force the tears away and she sends him smiles in the daylight. 

 

5-year-old Eunsook arrives home one day to tell her father that she really wants to dance, that there is nothing she enjoys more and that her friends’ mother has said she’s a good dancer. Jonghyun turns to look at his daughter before he lifts her into his lap and strokes her long black hair. 

“You can’t dance, sweetheart,” he says and Eunsook frowns. 

“I can!” She climbs from his lap and twirls in the middle of the living room floor, almost hitting the table and stumbling. She bows with a smile when she finishes and Jonghyun presses his lips together, his heart aching at the sight. 

“Sook, daddy can’t pay for dancing lessons,” he tries and Eunsook sends him a smile. 

“It’s okay daddy! Mrs Cho will teach me!” She’s standing on her tip-toes with wide puppy eyes, an act that is supposed to convince him that it’s okay, that she can learn dancing from Mrs. Cho, but Jonghyun doesn’t want her to dance. Gwiboon had been a dancer and the thought cuts into his chest as he looks at his daughter and shakes his head. He can’t have Eunsook dancing and resembling her mother in any more ways. He just wants to forget but how can he forget with Eunsook to keep him rooted to reality? Eunsook’s lower lip starts wobbling and she sniffs a couple of times. Jonghyun reaches out to her, lifts her into his lap again and hopes his warmth can comfort the girl. Eunsook curls into her father’s chest and cries as she’s denied what she wants the most. 

 

“Be good, sweetheart. Daddy will pick you up in 3 days,” Jonghyun tells 6-year-old Eunsook as he leaves her with his sister. Eunsook looks after him, clutching onto her aunt but the sadness shines in her eyes and the fear of being abandoned radiates off her. Jonghyun swallows the lump in his throat when he leaves his daughter behind. He spends the next three days looking for another part-time job, hoping to find anything so he can continue to support his daughter because the rent is higher now and his income not nearly enough to support them. Eunsook doesn’t know and Jonghyun lends money from his mother every month so he can continue to feed her. 

When he picks her up three days later, he has another job and less time to spend with his daughter but if it gives her what she needs to live, that’s all he wants. Eunsook bites her lower lip as she grabs his hand and tightens her grip to make sure she never loses her father again but it’s too late. 

 

Eunsook sits in the living room with her notebook filled with drawings when Jonghyun arrives home from his shift at the restaurant. She’s supposed to be sleeping, but she couldn’t sleep. Jonghyun is barely awake when he steps inside but as he finds his daughter on the couch, his face tightens. 

“Why are you awake?” he asks, voice tired and emotionless. Eunsook frowns a little. 

“I couldn’t sleep. Dad, will you read me a bedtime story?” They both know the answer to the question when Eunsook finishes, but she tries anyway, begs for him to notice the hug she needs and the affection she’s yearning for. Jonghyun just yawns. 

“I’m tired Eunsook, go to sleep,” he says and turns around, walks towards the small bathroom they share. Eunsook turns around in the couch to glare at her father. 

“You’re always tired! You never have time for me.” It’s too late for the argument, but her frustration is too much for her to keep under control. Jonghyun just ignores her. Eunsook can feel the tears that fall down her cheeks but Jonghyun doesn’t come to comfort her like he had when she was younger. That night she takes a decision. 

Jonghyun can’t find Eunsook the next morning and he spends majority of the day being distressed with his missing daughter. He doesn’t know where the 8-year-old has gone and the worry is gnawing at him, thoughts whispering what a bad father he has become and how little he deserves her. Jonghyun calls his mother but she hasn’t seen Eunsook. He doesn’t want to admit that she has run away and he has no idea why she has left to begin with but his mother sees through him. 

When Sodam knocks on the door in the evening, Eunsook in tow, Jonghyun feels relief flood him. The hug that follows has both of them sobbing into each other. Eunsook needs the affection and Jonghyun realizes he can’t lose the only thing he has. They cuddle on the worn leather couch and Jonghyun listens to Eunsook and the future is filled with promises of being better, being closer, being together.

 

Eunsook looks at the blackboard in class and then turns to look out of the window. Her friends are talking excitedly about Parent’s Day but Eunsook only feels a stone settle in her stomach. She knows her father won’t be able to join, he never is. It doesn’t matter what event the school creates. Eunsook knows he’s busy with his two jobs and that he works hard. That’s why she doesn’t make a fuss when he tells her he can’t bring her to school or pick her up. She never complains and she never tells him that the road she has to walk to and from school scares her because she doesn’t want to make him feel guilty. Yet at the same time, she can’t help but wish for him to prioritize her. He keeps talking about the clothes he’ll get her or the food he’ll bring home but Eunsook doesn’t want clothes or delicious new food. All she wants is her father – and that is too much to ask for. She crumbles the information paper up and buries it under her books, lets it stay as a forgotten memory. 

Her teacher asks her a week later why her father hasn’t arrived and Eunsook sends her a small smile and tells her that he’s too busy. Eunsook knows that her teacher suspects that something is wrong when she asks to her mother instead of her father. But Eunsook can’t give an answer to the question because she doesn’t know anything about her mother. She sinks into the couch when she comes home and pulls her knees to her chest. She hasn’t done any of her homework when Jonghyun arrives home from the grocery store. He’s going to leave in an hour for the restaurant but an hour is all he needs. 

“Dad?” she asks and Jonghyun turns around with a cup of instant coffee in his hands. The dark circles beneath his eyes make him look sick. Eunsook looks towards the floor and bites her lower lip, not aware of how her question will be received. “Where’s mom?” When she dares to look up Jonghyun’s lips are pressed together in a tight line. “I’m sorry,” Eunsook whispers and Jonghyun doesn’t answer her initial question. 

 

Their assignment is ‘what do you want to be when you grow up’. Eunsook is in second grade and her classmates are talking about grand dreams. One wants to be a fire fighter while another wants to be a singer. They all have dreams. The teacher then asks Eunsook to present her dream and she walks timidly to the front of the class, her long black hair swishing down her back. 

“I don’t know,” she admits. “I don’t have any dreams.” She wants to say that her dream is to get her father back and for him to stop working but she can’t say that. That will make her ungrateful for what she’s given, it will make her feel guilty for not loving him and for not understanding their situation. The teacher frowns. 

“There has to be something?” she prompts, trying to get Eunsook to continue but Eunsook shakes her head no. There is nothing. She doesn’t dream of anything. All she wants is her father and that is all she can’t say; all she can’t dream of. Eunsook tells Jonghyun in the evening over dinner. It’s rare that they eat together but the hum she gets in return lets her know that he hasn’t heard a word of what she has just told him and she gives up. There’s no point in talking when he doesn’t listen. It won’t give her what she needs. Eunsook goes to bed, feeling utterly alone and Jonghyun goes to bed, feeling like he’s missing something crucial, something important but he can’t figure out what. 

 

Jonghyun wants nothing more than to give Eunsook the childhood she deserves. Her hair is long and unkempt but Jonghyun can’t afford to send her to the hairdresser. He’s struggling, starving at the end of the month to make sure Eunsook is fed. His employers are unhappy with him and he’s barely sleeping at night, trying to quell the grief that is looming over him when he looks at his daughter and sees his wife. He wants to cry but instead he distances himself, fools himself into believing that she understands. Eunsook is a smart girl and Jonghyun loves her but the closer he gets, the more it hurts and so he stays away, even if it hurts to hear her cry in the middle of the night. 

“It’s your fault!” Eunsook screams. Jonghyun blinks back his surprise at the venom in her words. “If I was mom I would’ve left you too. You’re so selfish!” Jonghyun doesn’t know what brought the fight on but her words bring back sorrow and the open wound in his chest bleeds. 

“Eunsook, I’m working this hard for both of us! I love you. This has nothing to do with your mother, she was a wonderful woman,” he says and blinks back the tears. Eunsook doesn’t believe him. She isn’t as good as holding back the tears, however, and she chokes up. 

“If she was so wonderful, she wouldn’t have left me,” she sobs and Jonghyun draws closer, wraps his daughter in an embrace and lets his heart weep along with the tears his daughter cries into his chest. 

 

Eunsook resembles Gwiboon more and more and Jonghyun sometimes takes himself in forgetting that this is not the woman he loved. With his work performance going downhill and his life taking a turn for the worse, he finds comfort in alcohol he can’t afford. Eunsook watches as her father drowns his sorrows in the clear liquid and hates him for it. She wants nothing more than to leave but she has nowhere to go. She roams the streets for hours after school, afraid to go home, afraid that she’ll find her father drunk. She doesn’t want to care for him, she doesn’t want to love him. She seeks comfort in her grandmother but not even her grandmother can provide her with the comfort and affection she longs for. Jonghyun doesn’t listen when she tells him she hates him and Eunsook blames her mother for their situation when she hears him cry out in his sleep. 

 

None of them expects Jonghyun’s ballad to sell. It’s a last resort, a cry for something better than the threats of the streets. Sodam helps Eunsook find a hairdresser and get her hair cut so it looks pretty now that Jonghyun can suddenly afford it. They move into a new apartment in a better neighbourhood and Jonghyun takes his daughter clothes shopping, but the wall created between them only gets stronger and higher and they become distant as they stop communicating. Jonghyun is still drinking but he quits his jobs at the restaurant and the grocery store, composing songs full-time. Eunsook prays that he’ll listen but there’s no point in conversation and she soon stops trying. They’re living in the same apartment but Eunsook has never detested her father more than she does now, his gifts not enough to bridge the gap that was created in her earlier years. 

 

At the age of thirteen Eunsook gets her first period and cries in the bathroom. Her friends have yet to get theirs and Eunsook has no one to talk to. When she raises her concerns with her father, he tells her to be quiet. She calls her aunt in the evening, cries and tells her she is most likely going to die. Jonghyun is scolded by his sister for not listening to his daughter. 

 

Jonghyun doesn’t know how to start talking with Eunsook. The older she gets, the harder it becomes and the more his heart aches. He visits Gwiboon’s grave and cries. He wishes his wife was still there with him but he’s alone with a daughter that resembles his wife far too much and the pain is unbearable. 

 

Eunsook meets Minho when she’s 14. Minho is tall and beautiful. He has a group of friends and he’s funny, loud and sociable. He’s everything she isn’t and she is enchanted with him the moment they meet. Eunsook doesn’t consider herself pretty and she knows majority of her classmates don’t even notice her but Minho makes her feel pretty. He reminds her that she is more than she thinks she is and tells her that he really does like her. 

Eunsook falls in love, head over heels and she wants nothing more than to be what Minho expects her to be. She doesn’t know what she is or what she wants but she knows that she can be whatever Minho needs her to be. If only because it feels amazing to have affection and attention; because having someone who listens is something she’s been craving for all her life. 

They have sex 6 months into their relationship. Eunsook is scared and she doesn’t know whether or not she’s doing it right. She’s not entirely sure she wants it either but she wants to do what Minho wants. She doesn’t want to lose the affection and the love he shows her and so she agrees. It’s consented but she closes her eyes and focuses on his touch rather than on the sensation of something going in and out of her. Eunsook doesn’t get the pleasure from sex but she’s too scared to voice her opinion when Minho comes and looks so satisfied. 

He stops contacting her a week after and Eunsook is left confused. She doesn’t understand. She almost brings it up to her father, asks for advice but then remembers how little he listens and how little he cares and instead confides in a friend. Her friend is wide-eyed and disgusted when Eunsook tells her they have had sex and Eunsook shrinks into herself. 

Her heart breaks when she hears Minho brag to his group of friends about his accomplishment and one of them grumbling about a lost bet. When they see her eavesdropping she almost expects Minho to say “wait” and tell her it’s a lie, but he doesn’t. She leaves with tears trailing down her cheeks and hides in the bathroom while the sobs wreck her body. 

 

Jonghyun is seething with rage, his blood boiling, as he stands on the doorstep and waits for his mother to open the door. 16-year-old Eunsook is hiding behind her grandmother when the door opens and it only sends Jonghyun into another rage he can’t quite control. He steps inside and forcefully pulls his daughter away from his mother before his palm collides with her cheek. There’s silent in the hallway but Jonghyun doesn’t notice the tension. 

“Stop running away!” he shouts. “I’m doing my best to ensure you have everything and you run away! Ungrateful child!” Eunsook shrinks a little but tries to push him away when he grabs her forearm and starts dragging her out of the front door. 

“You don’t fucking care about anything!” she yells. Jonghyun stops and looks at her. 

“You’re grounded,” he says instead, voice calm and steady and ice cold and Eunsook shrinks away as she’s dragged towards the new car. She wants to cry, not because of the grounding but because of the lack of response. The anger had been better than the lack of reaction and she would take a slap any day but Jonghyun doesn’t seem to know, doesn’t seem to care and Eunsook feels so insignificant. 

 

When Eunsook is 17 she has sex again. The physical contact with another human removes the feeling of loneliness for a while and she seeks it out. The girls in her class consider her a slut and the boys all know who to hook up with for a one night stand. Eunsook doesn’t care about the rumors, she doesn’t care about the backstabbing and the talking behind her back. She has no friends and she’s alone but anything is better than the cold atmosphere of her home and she seeks it out, longs for it and welcomes it with every touch to her skin, every thrust into her. 

Jonghyun, however, doesn’t appreciate his young daughter having sex and the more he ignores the smell of men’s perfume on her clothes when she arrives home, the harder it becomes to talk to her. Their relationship cannot be mended and every time he looks at his daughter he feels a surge of guilt. Nothing he buys her is appreciated and everything he tries is dismissed with a shrug. They barely talk despite living in the same apartment and Jonghyun grows frustrated. He knows it’s his fault, he can’t blame Eunsook, yet he does. 

He blames them both, blames himself and blames Gwiboon. He forgets his own faults and just blames his daughter for not trying enough, for not understanding enough. And he blames his wife for leaving him in a time where he needed her, where they needed her. 

 

“Get out!” Jonghyun shouts at the half-naked man in Eunsook’s bed. 

“Stay!” Eunsook says in defiance and grabs the man’s hand. 

“Get out of my house! Out!” Jonghyun lunges towards the man and he grabs his clothes, shoots a confused look towards Eunsook and hurries out of the room. Eunsook stands from her bed. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asks. 

“You’re not having sex, young lady,” Jonghyun says and Eunsook feels anger rise. 

“Who are you to decide that?” she asks, her voice strained and the tension thick.

“I’m you father.” Jonghyun is staring at her. 

“I can’t believe you’re using that on me now!” she exclaims and rolls her eyes in exasperation. “I’m out!” She grabs her t-shirt from the floor and pulls it over her head but she doesn’t get to take a step forward before her father has slapped her cheek, the sound of skin against skin resounding in the room. 

“You’re not leaving,” Jonghyun tells her. “What if you got pregnant?” 

“Who are you to fucking care?” Her cheek stings and the tears are pooling in her eyes. She feels the desperation, the frustration, the loneliness. Everything she has never had and the only thing she has always wanted. It’s there in the way her father acts like he cares about her, acts like it matters if she got pregnant but it doesn’t matter because he never cared. “Stop acting like you care. You drove mom away.” The palm that connects to her cheek a second time is unexpected. 

“Don’t bring up your mother!” Jonghyun says, his voice strained. “She has nothing to do with this.” Except she does and they both know. 

“She left you because you’re a horrible man and I can’t believe she left me with you.” The venom in Eunsook’s words is stronger than ever before. 

“She killed herself when you were born.” The words are spoken in anger and the revelation stuns Eunsook to silence. “She didn’t leave me, she left you. You killed her.” 

“I hate you,” Eunsook whispers before she leaves Jonghyun in her room.

 

Eunsook graduates high school a few weeks later, a note on the kitchen table telling her father to stay away. They haven’t spoken in the weeks and the written words are the first thing he sees from her. Jonghyun feels guilty for telling her Gwiboon died because of her, but he can’t take back his words and he can’t apologize. The words are stuck in his throat. Instead, he acknowledges her wishes and stays away from her graduation day. 

His mother sends him a picture of Eunsook in her school uniform with a bouquet of flowers in her hands and a smile and he breaks down. He should have been there but it’s too late for him to fix what is already broken. 

 

Eunsook leaves for college and moves into a dorm in the other end of town. She doesn’t tell Jonghyun which university she attends and she doesn’t tell him her course either. When December rolls around she finds a gift and a card on her bed. Her roommate looks at her when Eunsook puts the gift away, stores it under her bed unopened when she realizes it’s from her father. They don’t talk about it nor do they talk about the letters Eunsook burns in the fire at the fireplace. Eunsook can’t forgive her father. She can’t forgive him for calling her a murderer but above all else, she can’t forgive him for losing her. 

 

When she turns 24 she gets pregnant. The father leaves with excuses as soon as he learns that she’s pregnant. It’s abnormal and unusual and people look at her when they realize she’s a single woman, bearing a child that is going to be born out of wedlock. Eunsook doesn’t care much for the looks. She has been alone for all her life and now is not going to be any different. She finishes her degree and gets a job at a school a few weeks before she gives birth. When she looks at the baby boy in her arms, she promises him to give him all her love. She will never go a day without listening to him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this fic! ^_^


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